Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Ricoh Co., Ltd. and Osaka University will in fiscal 2004 start developing an optical disc that can store 1.5TB(terabytes) of data, enough to store about 300 DVDs, sources close to the matter said Saturday.

Pioneer Corp., Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., Aishin Seiki Co., Ltd., Kyushu University and Shizuoka University will also participate in the project. They will invest 2-3 billion yen over five years, aiming to commercialize the disc by 2010.

They will introduce three-dimensional multilayer optical memory technology and storing data in a 10-layer structure. They aim to develop materials suitable for optical high-density recording and make each layer capable of storing 150 gigabytes. The optical disc is 12cm in diameter and can record 300 2-hour films and is compatible with standard DVDs.